CC Minutes - 11/30/05 Work Session

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He felt all would benefit from hearing each other at this level. He commented that sometimes people get along fine and sometimes they do not and discussions would help all to be heard. Ibrahim Hamide , representing the Arab-American community, remarked that each community was unique, as were its problems. He said any teacher would say that abused children act up in class and he observed that abused communities act up within the community. He agreed with Ms. Urbina that access to services should be equal and that all areas of the City should be inclusive and mindful of the subcultures that exist in the community. He thought sometimes one had to think outside the box and go beyond legislation. He said compassion would go a long way. He related that the Arab-American community felt disenfranchised, especially since the events of September 11, 2001. He felt his community was the “doormat” and the “kicking dog” for everyone and had, as a result, been “slinking along” and trying to escape notice. He averred that this did not make for a healthy community. He hoped the City would find the compassion to bring his community into the fold and support them. He said his community was also diverse and it would not always be realistic to expect a community to stand up, organize itself, and act as a strong and viable part of the bigger culture. He related that people were busy raising families and tackling what every other person was tackling in their lives. But, he added, his community was also reeling from the image of being an unwanted and undesirable group. He said his community needed to be coaxed and helped to get over their fear. The City needed to figure out how to reach the community if it really wanted participation from diverse groups. He declared that the City may need to learn something about the uniqueness of its inhabitants. George Russell , School Superintendent for the School District 4J and member of the African-American community, commended the City Council for taking on the task. He predicted that the council would find this issue to be a huge undertaking, fraught with complications. He reiterated that there was no such thing as a monolithic community of color. He felt it was important to understand that there were different views and perspectives within all communities. He thought all the necessary ingredients for success in this endeavor were contained in the action plan. He stated that the challenge lay in how it would be made meaningful. He observed that, based on past history, there was not a real trust that any dialogue or community conversations would end up being meaningful and result in substantive improvement. He reiterated that he could not represent the African-American community because it was large and diverse. He thought many of the strategies and the action plan were things that had been tried before. He stressed the importance of structuring the meetings in a way that people really believed they were going to have meaning and that productive things would come of them. He said it was about a larger sense of community and how Eugene could become a model for race relations, not only for the State but for the country. Carla Gary , member of the African-American community, felt that everyone preceding her had said all the right words. She thought the only thing she could add was that though the plan was fine, it was not the plan per se but what would be done with it that really mattered. She said part of this lay in how what needed to be done would be interpreted. She stated that unless everyone, including councilors, could be part of a training, the same material would appear the same way. She likened it to the Ruben illusion, which could be perceived as a profile or a candelabrum. She said she did not care which vision one saw, but she cared that everyone recognized that there was more than one way to look at it. She felt that unless one had the capacity to look at this through different eyes, the results of the process would be the same because the perceptions would remain the same. She said the training needed to happen and then the City needed to determine where the areas in which problems had been experienced were, how they had been resolved, and how they could have been resolved in a better way. She agreed that she could not represent an entire community; she was a part of it. She noted that she was also a part of the University of Oregon community and that community depended greatly on what happened in the City of Eugene. She stressed that this was not just about the City MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 30, 2005 Page 4 Work Session